Recent reviews by jonfunk

Profound, interesting, satisfying, fun. I highly recommend this game for anyone with even a small appreciation for puzzle games and/or languages. It's more accessible than you might expect, and highly rewarding from beginning to end.

I've sat on this game for a long time thinking to myself: "Well, it's so well known for being pretty. That's probably all it is! A pretty looking toy."

I'm happy to say (and sad that it took so long to discover) that it is NOT merely a pretty looking toy. The mechanics on display here are just as engaging as the visuals (to say nothing of the soundtrack that also scores top marks)!

This is a game that grabs you in the first minutes of play and (so far at least, in my experience) only EVER leaves you wanting more. I may be jumping the gun with this review, but I'm already so impressed that I couldn't wait to share about this game. I look forward to getting sucked along further into this beatiful, melodious, and utterly engaging world. ^_^

Duly recommended!

Spectacular. Emotional. Surprising! Engaging!

This game comes highly recommended! Every time I thought I couldn't be more pleased, the game throws a curve ball and brand new delights abound.

The mechanics are novel (controlling two plaftormer-type character simultaneously), but it goes far deeper than that. The mechanics aren't merely special for the challenge they present. They are part of the narrative structure of the game. This is as much a storytelling experience (without words, mind you!) as it is an interactive one.

The environment is beautiful and hides many subtle touches and ways to interact. Although I finished the game (& all acheivements) in under 5 hours, I have no doubt I will return to it time and again to immerse myself in this beautiful world and to be swept up again in the grand adventure.

Anecdote: At one point my son started watching me play and initially he thought we were watching an animated show. I started narrating as if I was inside the brother's minds and he sat right down next to me for almost two hours, just as engaged by watching the experience as I was playing it.

You owe it to yourself to check out this game. Don't be discouraged by the ~4 hour length. This is 4 hours dense with adventure, wonder, delight, and surprise.

Hilarious fun. I don't see myself sinking numerous hours into this game, but I can imagine myself returning to it periodically when I have the urge to build a silly robot ATV and / or kill other silly robots ATVs.

It's free to play, no reason not to check it out. Happy hunting! ^_^

This is one of those games that has sat in my Steam library for years in the 'Another Artsy Indie Game I'll Try Someday' category.

And now I wish I had tried it sooner.

The first time your character gets decapitated by a bear trap, you will feel a tingle up your spine. When the spider catches you and spins you into its web, you will shudder with revulsion. When you finally (and brutally) tear the final leg from the spider's body, you will marvel at how satisfying such a gruesome act could be.

And all this is after just 48 minutes of playing the game! Any game that can tap my emotions so deftly will earn a resounding recommendation from me, regarless of how good/bad/ugly those emotions happen to be. Bonus points for acheiving this feat in such a minimalist environment with no vocals/text or any other in-game guidance (other than said environment itself).

Final thought: I don't enjoy horror games. While this game has caused me to feel terror, I don't clasify it as 'horror'. This game is not violent or scary for the sake of being violent/scary, but uses the induced emotional state as a mechanic within the game (although you may not realize this at first).

Duly recommended.

Great game.

This is a (difficult!) side-scrolling, action platformer with randomly generated scenarios / drops and permanent death. There is also a series of unlockable objects and character classes (10!), but unlike another popular rogue-lite of late (Rogue Legacy), there is no persistent 'leveling' from one run to the next. Each run starts a new character at base stats (for their class) and survival is a function of (mostly) skill and (less, but still significant) luck (i.e. what enemies / bosses spawn, where the objectives land, what items are dropped).

There's another interesting mechanic at play: difficulty increases over time. You can pick your 'starting difficulty', but there is a timer that kicks up the difficulty a notch every few minutes, so that you have to make careful choices about chasing upgrades vs. progressing to the next level.

For timeline reference, I almost beat the game this morning in an hour-long run, but by then the difficulty was up in the "Insane" thresholds. I had been going slow, collecting lots of power-ups, so I was well equipped for the toughness, but not well enough, in the end. If I had skipped just a few minor upgrades (in the form of items collected) or powered through some of the level bosses a bit faster, I probably could have beaten it. (I've been told that you can beat it in 25 minutes, but 40-60 is more likely. If you are willing to let the difficulty max out, you can spend hours in game before finishing)

Since I'm comparing it to Rogue Legacy now, other differences include the older, pixel-art style. (Don't take this as an insult. The pixel art and animations are beautiful!). There is also local and online co-op, but I haven't tried those out, yet. (They can only add value to this positive recommendation at this point).

Overall: Highly recommended (Probably well-suited to people that liked Rogue Legacy and also like the pixel-art aesthetic.)

Throw away any of your preconceptions of the 'roguelike' genre. Although this game shares some of the basic shapes with that awkwardly named set, Rogue Legacy is such a unique take on the genre that it hardly deserves to be lumped in with the rest of them.

This is far closer to a Castlevania or Ghosts-n-Goblins platformer, although it broadens the platforming genre with aspects of the roguelike (permadeath, randomly generated maps, rapid character iteration). It also throws in a dash of clever character progression in the form of upgrades to your Keep. Various different fundamental upgrades ('Health Up', 'Unlock New Character Class', 'Improve Negotiation', etc.) will create a branching upgrade tree that is graphically represented by the growth and extension of the character's home base.

And when I say 'character', I should really say 'family'. Each time your avatar dies, the battle is carried on by one of his or her children, each of whom are saddled with traits ranging from good (Strong arms = improved knockback), to bad (Vertigo = The screen is vertically flipped), to ugly (Irritable Bowel Syndrome). Did I mention amusing?

The whole package comes together with clever level design (you'd hardly believe that this is really 'random'), awesome visuals, challenging and varied enemies, and a level of 'sheen' rarely seen from a relatively small Indie studio.

Recommended, all around. Even if you don't know (or like) what a 'roguelike' is... This is so much more.

Rarely have I had the experience of painting (or perhaps I should say 'sculpting'?) with music. In fact, unless I'm forgetting something, I've only had it once to date: When playing Auditorium just now. Yes, I've played it once, for perhaps 20 minutes, and it's already got me itching to send this recommendation out into the world.

I won't say that this game is deep, per se. But for me (and perhaps for other music+game lovers?) it is highly satisfying.

If you're curious about mechanics, you basically use gravity wells to shoot particles of raw music potential, attempting to intersect them with regions of space representing instruments. Some instruments require tuned particles, so you must first direct them through color-tuning fields before slingshotting back to instrument areas. Basically, you create galaxies of swirling colorful particles, that, when lined up just so, create a glorious symphony of sounds to reward you.

The effect is marvelous and transporting. On almost every level I've played so far (perhaps the first 15 or so), I've gotten lost in the beauty of my own musical universe of swirling lights. I find myself staring into each beautiful solution, until the desire to make NEW music finally overwhelms the desire to languish.

Duly recommended.

This game is amazing. It feel more like an airship battle simulator than a game. And trust me, that's a compliment. Everything about this game is so spot on, but most of all: the 'feel' of piloting an airship into battle. Highly recommended.

Brilliant and mind-bending. Incredible frustrating and completely rewarding.

Doesn't matter who you are, this is recommended.